Lasers, caves and bones...

It is rare that palaeontologists requires caving equipment to track down extinct beasties. However, my teams baggage is currently bulging with hard-hats, lamps, knee-pads, etc., as we are headed underground.

The next few days should be rather fun. We will be trying-out our new Z+F LiDAR unit to image some beautiful caves at a new field area we are currently exploring. We hope to deploy the LiDAR unit to map in-situ bones within this very 3-Dimensional environment. The scans will allow us to spatially plot bone positions relative to the whole cave complex and then relate the materials temporal position within the stratigraphy from which each bone hails. We aim to use this data to better understand the pre- and post-transport/reworking and burial of the said assemblage.... amongst other things.

The most amazing facet of this particular cavern of delights, is that the vertebrate assemblage seems relatively undisturbed, possibly down to the remote nature of our site. I will try and find a way to upload images over the next few days...but this may be difficult....and will be somewhat dictated by the availability of subterranean internet!